The 2010 election isn’t about Obama or Bush. It’s about fear. It’s about a nation fearful that its grip upon world domination has slipped. It has. The world is flat. It’s hard to imagine a future in which China continues making better goods more profitably than we do, that India can offer cheaper customer service even 3000 miles away. And just like during the ‘40s, some foreigners want to kill us.

And so panic and extremism is running in the streets. A well-known local right-winger claims he is not just made fearful but is ‘terrorized’ by the California state of affairs. Meanwhile this campaign has revealed how shallow our pool of new candidates has become.

Laguna knows a scam when it sees one. Three seasoned officeholders will return to the City Council in November no matter what voter turnout is like. And we can proudly know that Laguna Beach has one of the highest percentages of registered voters in the nation. But nationwide the GOP knows, as the Democrats do not, that Democrats fall in love while Republicans fall into line. Democrats are famous for resting under a tree during a “boring” mid-term campaign and then howling with dismay when their candidates and issues lose.

If the Democrats can’t get their boots on the ground on Nov. 2, the balance of power will turn. Teabaggers will make some of the most critical choices in public life over the next years. We don’t want that, now do we?

The greater the turnout on Nov. 2, the better the Democrats will do. If you vote absentee, send it now. If you go to the polls on Tuesday to vote, make sure you do it. And make sure your friends and relations do too. Unless they are Republicans. In that case, they can wait until Wednesday.